‘John and Mary Doe, I Love You’

There has never been a human terror—even of a Hitler or a Stalin—which threatened the human self more lethally than it is threatened today. Paradoxically, the threat comes most consistently from those who see themselves as deeply concerned for the “quality of life.”

Our civilization and its culture were built around one linchpin persuasion: that the personal identity, the very self, of John or Mary Doe resides in an inviolable entity we have always called spirit, or soul, which functions bodily and psychologically—besides spiritually —and has a unique relationship to one body and to the material world. This persuasion came from religious belief, specifically from Christianity. But it is no longer the operant and generally accepted persuasion about the self today.

MM

About the Author

Malachi B. Martin

There has never been a human terror—even of a Hitler or a Stalin—which threatened the human self more lethally than it is threatened today. Paradoxically, the threat comes most consistently from those who see themselves as deeply concerned for the “quality of life.”

Our civilization and its culture were built around one linchpin persuasion: that the personal identity, the very self, of John or Mary Doe resides in an inviolable entity we have always called spirit, or soul, which functions bodily and psychologically—besides spiritually —and has a unique relationship to one body and to the material world. This persuasion came from religious belief, specifically from Christianity. But it is no longer the operant and generally accepted persuasion about the self today.